


Castle Walls and Haunted Houses

by liketreesinnovember



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-27
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-03-20 00:11:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18981208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketreesinnovember/pseuds/liketreesinnovember
Summary: The show kinda forgot about Casterly Rock and Sansa and Tyrion's marriage, so here's a post-series fic to fill in some gaps.





	Castle Walls and Haunted Houses

He is so tired.

He is tired, but he never sleeps.

The night had never been much of a comfort to Tyrion, and now the thought of sleep uninterrupted by nightmares seems itself like a dream.

In his dreams, he walks the shadowed empty halls, his footsteps leaving behind little clouds of dust. A dwarf’s footsteps, not big enough to fill the others that have walked here. Some of those had been cruel, some weak, but all had been great lords, and he is something less than that, half a man and half a shadow.

He hears the echo of waves crashing against stone, rumbling through vast, soundless corridors and ending in cobwebbed corners.

 _Eventually the sea washes away everything_ , Tyrion remembers reading once. Perhaps one day the sea will rise and carry this bold rock with it, stone by stone, until nothing remains but an empty space, a gash in the side of the cliff-face, exposed and scarred like an old wound.

The thought makes his face itch.

Tyrion walks on, in darkness, no candles to light his way. There are few windows in Casterly Rock, and every room is a haunted house. Here the ghosts of where Jaime and he had played as children. Here the statues of warriors past, ancestors, all tall. _Are there any like me?_ He remembers asking his maester, when he was still young enough to not know what men meant when they called him Imp. If there had been any, however, the stonecutters had not seen fit to give them shape.

_The Smith forms us all from clay, and the Mother breathes her life into us. We are as they have made us, so that we may best serve the seven aspects of God._

“Do you really want to be lord of a castle full of ghosts?” Sansa asks, and moves among the winter roses without waiting for an answer.

It is warm in the glass garden, and Tyrion is continually impressed by the intricate system of channels and drains used to keep the water from Winterfell’s hot springs flowing to the greenhouse and the rest of the keep. He himself knows something of the subject.

“Every peasant’s hovel and pile of stones along the road is haunted these days,” he says, as Sansa chooses a pale blue flower.

“What I mean is,” Sansa wraps the rose stem in her kerchief and holds the flower to her breast, “Your memories of that place were not exactly happy. And besides, you would best serve my brother if your interests were not so... _divided_ , surely?”

She had used that word once before.

"I am loyal to the King," he says.

"And what about the Queen?"

"You are the King's sister, of course my loyalty remains with you as well."

"That is not what I meant. I do not doubt that my brother will grant you the lordship of the Westerlands, should that be your wish. However," Sansa fingers the rose in her hands, "I have been told by my bannerman that I must needs take a husband."

"And you wish for me to advise you on this?" Tyrion knows how uncomfortable the topic of marriage must be for her. Twice wedded, once betrothed, used horribly. That he had played a part in her ruination, however small, makes him feel unworthy in her presence. What advise or comfort could he possibly give to her? She had not needed him before, and she certainly did not need him now that she was a queen.

"I really did think you were cleverer than that, my lord," Sansa says. "I do not need you to advise me on the topic of husbands. As it happens, I already have a husband."

It was the least that Tyrion had expected. "Your Grace...Sansa...a loveless political marriage to...to _me_ ...you don't want that. You can't. If you are afraid of being hurt again...there are other men, _better_ men. Men worthy of you who can give you strong sons and beautiful daughters."

Unconsciously, he lowers his gaze, not wanting to see her reaction, but he is startled out of his own self-retreat when he feels a hand tilt his chin upward. With her other hand she places the pale blue rose, with its stem wrapped in her fragrant silk handkerchief, in his fingers, and curls her own fist around his small one. She really is a queen, now, but gentler than Cersei or anyone he has ever met.

"No, Tyrion. A loveless political marriage is not what I want.”

There are ghosts everywhere. In Winterfell as well. Even in their marriage bed, the ghosts lie with them at night. He sees them in Sansa's eyes sometimes when they lie awake. And when he falls asleep, he returns again to that place, to wander those halls. The nightmare is familiar, and the waking, the cold sweat on his skin and his heart thumping in his chest. However, this time when he wakes, she is there to bring him home again.


End file.
